I don’t know the result of this. I know who I think won it but I stopped watching before the result and recorded that bit. So I can’t go to the Singer of the World site for the aria titles because I know it’ll have the winner splashed all over the place so this is going to be a bit crap and unprofessional especially considering I should know them all anyway. I can’t ask the others because I don’t trust them not to blab the result.
So first up was Eri Nakamura. Before the concert I was convinced she would win. Obviously I didn’t really know because I’d only seen one aria from each competitor so I didn’t have much idea of them as complete opera singers but Eri’s song was so well-performed she was my front-runner.
To start off with she sang Juliette’s Je veux vivre from Romeo et Juliette which seems quite a popular choice this year. Eri sang it very well but I thought she seemed a bit nervous, not surprising really but she wasn’t at her best. But in a way her nervousness really suited the aria because I believed she was a fourteen year old girl.
In her second aria she stayed with Juliet, this time she was Bellini’s version. Giulietta. Eri has sung this at the ROH but the audience are a bit further away there and you can do the whole thing in character. She sounded a lot more sure of herself this time and even though she was singing the same character there were differences, she seemed like a slightly more grown-up version in this and obviously the style was different.
Then she sang one of Liu’s arias from Turandot. Mary King (who was giving her opinion on the singers, it was her and Susan Graham) said she thought Liu was too big a role for Eri at the moment but that she would do a great job of it later on. I kind of agree, Eri does have quite a light voice for Liu but I thought for a concert it was okay. She sang it really nicely and she brought Liu’s character across really well, she was being quite tough at the beginning but you saw what she’s like underneath it as well.
Next up was Cacille by Richard Strauss, not an opera aria but it was something to sing with the orchestra. I wasn’t sure about her German but I did like how she sang it.
Then after that I’m pretty sure she did another song (I started writing notes halfway through Giordano Luca’s songs and good thing I did because then I’d have forgotten even more songs) but I’m pretty sure Eri came back to opera for her last aria. I think I remember getting really excited about it, it might have been something to do with her boobs but I’ve actually got a feeling it wasn’t. Eri went out with a bang, in a good way. (Once I’ve watched the end and seen the winner maybe I’ll come back and edit the song titles in.) But this was really brilliantly and confidently sung.
I can’t say I was disappointed with Eri because you can’t blame her for being nervous and it was a good performance and it could be she wasn’t nervous, maybe she was just acting nervous because she was pretending to be a teenage girl who’s got a new bloke. It’s good she was able to relax into it at the end and really enjoyed it but at this stage I was thinking she could still win, she could definitely still win, brilliant performer but maybe she won’t walk it.
The second singer was Giordano Luca, the only Italian tenor ever to appear in a final which is a bit of a surprise as most people when they think of opera would think of Italian tenors (unless they thought of Domingo I suppose but I bet loads of people think he’s Italian). I wasn’t that impressed by him in his first concert but he won the round and everyone’s been raving about him so obviously I was missing something.
He sang Una furtiva langrima from L’elisir d’amore first. I thought Giordano sang quite nicely in this but he did seem a bit shaky sometimes, could be nerves, and a bit tight at the top, same. But I also thought he didn’t do anything like really special. I’ve heard this song so many times by so many people and when I have to sit through it again I want to hear someone do something with it that makes me sit up and listen and think oh yes that’s quite a good song actually. But Giordano didn’t quite.
Next up was the Duke of Mantua, La donna e mobile from Rigoletto (or We’ve got Cesc Fabregas to the Arsenal fans, now that really is something to sing about) and I think Mary had a point when she said Giordano wasn’t naughty enough. I also thought the fast passage was maybe a little bit clumsy and he wasn’t totally comfortable with the aria. That’s just me though.
Then he came on and sang Rodolfo’s Your Tiny Hand is Frozen and suddenly I saw what everyone was raving about. It’s another one of those arias everyone does and usually I don’t think it quite works if he hasn’t got a Mimi there. But this was like he did have a Mimi there. He was really intense, totally into the character, I got quite caught up in the drama and I don’t even like Boheme that much, not the soppy bits. And it was really well sung as well. Like I said I’d only heard one of his arias from his first concert but if he sang the other 2 half as well as this I can see why he won his round and got into the final.
Then he came back on as Macduff. Macduff is quite a big character in the play but in the opera he only really shows up at the end after his family is killed. Mary and Susan weren’t totally sure if he could do it and I can see their point, it’s a role for quite a big voice really and obviously Macduff’s a married bloke, well a widowed bloke who used to have loads of children, Giordano is only 21, he might have loads of children but I’d be quite surprised really. I liked the beginning bit where he was singing about how sad he was but when it went into the revenge bit he didn’t quite get into the character. He did sing it well though, his voice had warmed up so the tightness was gone and I could see him putting emotion and like different vocal colours into it which I couldn’t really hear earlier on.
I’m really glad I got the chance to hear Giordano again. Obviously when he won his group and got through I thought I must be missing something. Okay I didn’t think he was quite as good a performer as Mary and Susan said but his Rodolfo was brilliant. And even though I don’t think the judges should take this into account, it’s not fair on the others but that was a seriously top class performance from a singer who is only 21 and according to the presenter Huw Something (thought he was good, he was funny but didn’t go all out trying to entertain everyone and he knew his music) Giordano had never sung with a big orchestra like that before and okay yes he sometimes got out of time with him but that sometimes happens and I think he’s done really well to get so comfortable with an orchestra as he has.
The third singer was Jan Martinik who walked off with the Song Prize on Friday or Saturday or whenever it was. I liked him when I saw him in the concerts, he got this really sad look on his face which I remembered but I didn’t think he was one of the stars for me and I was a bit surprised he got into the finals although obviously it’s hard for me to judge any of them when I’ve only heard one song and it’s not like I’m a proper judge anyway, I just like giving my opinions on things.
Jan started off with an aria from Rusalka and right from the first note I was like, actually he totally should be in the final shouldn’t he. It wasn’t exactly an all-action song, it was very calm but he had this big intensity thing going on, this energy coming off him that really gets your attention. He’s got a great voice as well, really great sound.
His next song was totally different, Don Basilio’s La calumnia from Barber of Seville. I didn’t know if Jan could do comedy but he so can, he kept doing these things with his eyes, it was so funny. Completely different character and he sang it really well. You know what, I’ve heard this song millions of times, I’ve heard all kinds of great singers singing it but I don’t think I’ve ever sat listening to it before and been thinking like, you know what that’s a really nice voice. But with Jan I was hearing all the humour in it and I was loving it but I was loving his nice voice too. Not in a gay way, just in a music appreciation way, you know what I mean.
For his last song Jan did another sad one but in another different style, he did the bit from Don Carlo where King Philip is singing about how his wife doesn’t love him, she fancies his son (by the way that’s her stepson who is actually the same age as her, it’s not an incest opera). King Philip is obviously a bit of an old bloke as he’s got grown-up children, not sure how old Jan is but I think he’s got to be under 35, I’m sure there’s an age limit somewhere around there. So I suppose he might just about have a 19 year old which could be how old Don Carlo is but he’s not going to know anything about being an old guy because he just isn’t. But when he was singing you could just believe he was old, you just got this impression of slowness and tiredness and another thing I really liked was he didn’t wave his arms about and make a big thing about it, he was really like restrained so like even though he was really sad and stuff there was kind of like this dignity about him that reminds you he’s the king.
So after that I was thinking we could have a double winner here. Marius Brenciu who’s a tenor won the Main Prize and the Song Prize in 2001 I think but no-one else has ever done that. It was the 26th Main Prize but the Song Prize is newer but it can’t be all that new because Bryn Terfel won it and he’s like ancient. Jan could win the Main Prize, he’s done a 100% good programme.
Yuriy Mynenko is the counter tenor from the Ukraine, I thought he was great to listen to but I didn’t think he was that good really. So I was surprised to see him in the final really but I was very happy for him to prove me wrong if he felt like it.
He started off by singing an aria I’d never heard of from an opera I’d never heard of. I think it might be called something like Idaspe and it was by a composer called something like Broesch. I really liked the aria, it was good stuff. I still didn’t think Yuriy was the best singer in the final but he did get a stronger sound this time and you really got a feeling for the character in this aria.
His Serse aria was good in lots of ways, his voice can sound really lovely but when he gets under pressure he honks a little bit and that part wasn’t so good. But that’s just me, it really is just me. The audience seemed to like him the best so far, Mary and Susan both adored him, obviously the judges liked him or he wouldn’t have been there.
I did really like his Tancredi aria though which I was quite relieved about actually, I thought there was something wrong with my ears or something. It was a good one to finish with and not just because I liked it best, it was a really dramatic aria. I wrote in my notes that he was quite commanding, I’m not totally sure what I meant now but it was a really exciting aria and he sang it really well.
I think Yuriy probably can win through. I haven’t agreed totally with Mary and Susan on everything so far because everyone has different tastes but I do respect their opinion and it’s so completely different from mine on Yuriy I’d say they’re probably right and I’m not. Which is what you’d expect really.
The last singer was Ekaterina Shcherbachenko who sang Tatyana’s Letter Scene in one of the earlier concerts. I think I’m partly being influenced here by what Mary was saying about her blowing everyone away with it but even though I nearly didn’t pick her as my choice of winner from her concert she did one of the performances I remember most from the concerts.
She started off with Marguerite’s Jewel Song from Faust. I don’t like this aria much, I think it’s a bit silly but I really got into it this time. Ekaterina did that thing again, when she was Tatyana she made me believe she had paper and pen and stuff like that, this time it was almost like I could see the jewels, I can’t quite imagine them probably but I don’t know loads about jewels really. But you know maybe I should get hold of a box and give it to some girl, it worked with Marguerite. Ekaterina sang it really well too, nice tone and it seemed really easy for her.
Next she sang a Liu aria, not the one Eri sang, another one, the more famous one which I can’t remember the name of which is really pissing me off. It’s not actually an aria I’ve ever tried singing though so I don’t exactly know it really well. The singing was really nice and she got all the emotions in her voice and in her face but one thing about the way Ekaterina sang this aria, you could tell Liu is a slave girl. She was kind of looking down as she sang, appearing quite awkward like she knows she knows her place and she knows she’s overstepping things a bit but what she’s got to say is really important.
Then last she sang Anne Trulove’s big No Word from Tom aria from The Rake’s Progress. When she said she was singing an aria in English I guessed it was this and I was like oh no I don’t want to hear that again. But it was really good, I didn’t get bored once, Ekaterina really brought out the tunes in it and she didn’t get on my nerves, Anne usually gets on my nerves. And the ending was really well sung, it was actually exciting, I wasn’t thinking like, should I cover my ears for this bit, I was more like, actually this isn’t a bad song. And her English was really good, English is a b*d to sing even if it’s your first language. Her diction wasn’t perfect but how many millions of English/American/Australian singers can you say that about? And you know sometimes when like a Russian singer might sing (or any nationality) and you’ll hear a bit of a Russian or whatever accent, I didn’t get that with Ekaterina, that might be because not all her words were clear but whatever, I think she was great
I thought she could win this as soon as she came out onto the stage. And afterwards I thought she could easily win it and right now she’s my favourite to win it. And not just because she’s a hot blonde. Eri is a hot brunette though.
The Audience Prize is going to be announced as well, I’m not sure who it’s going to be but I hope it’s Etienne Dupris because he was really unlucky to miss out on the final I thought although maybe the arias I didn’t hear were a bit crap, who knows. But the last two times at least the Audience Prize has been given to someone who didn’t get into the Final but probably should have done, Jacques Imbrailo last time and Ha Young Lee the time before that. Although actually they were both ROH Young Artists so maybe the audience will go for Ji-Min Park this time as he’s a Young Artist (so’s Eri but she was in both finals), after all the Young Artists have been singing at the best opera house in the world so they probably had lots of fans right from the start, before they’d even sung their first note in the competition and Ji-Min is a really good singer. So I’ll go for Ji-Min or Etienne for the Audience Prize.
So the Main Prize I’ve got a feeling Ekaterina could win it but Jan was also really good so he might get it. They were the two best for me on the night but Eri is so close, the judges might easily go for her because they might think her last aria was the best thing of the evening which it might have been and if I was wrong about Eri being nervous or they couldn’t see it (they were a long way away), she’s right up there with them. And the same with Giordano, his Rodolfo was definitely one of the best bits and he’s the youngest, I think the youngest singers in the final won the last 2 main prizes, Nicole Cabell and Shen Yang, I don’t think you should take age into account really but maybe sometimes the only way of choosing between 2 singers is to look at their potential and the youngest one usually has more potential if that makes sense because they’ve probably got more career ahead of them. Yuriy I obviously have a mental block about so I can’t rule him out either and he is exciting to watch because I’ve never heard a counter tenor singing that high before. But I know who I’d vote for. Hairy won’t like me saying this, he’s very anti-gambling but my Money is on Ekaterina.
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